The British Government has shut down an online platform aiding users to steal money from hundreds of thousands of people globally.
The platform, named ‘Russian Coms’ but with no known link to the Russian state, was a crime-as-a-service operation that allowed criminals to impersonate legitimate callers such as banks or credit card firms in order to defraud victims over the phone.
Closure of the platform was disclosed on Friday by the National Crime Agency (NCA) after it had facilitated 1.3 million calls to UK phone numbers between 2021 and 2024.
The agency noted that several millions of pounds have been lost by over 170,000 citizens within the three years period.
NCA noted that this number does not include individuals that have lost money through the platform globally.
The closure came barely four months after three people from Newham, London were arrested and released on conditional bail over crime related to the platform functions.
According to NCA, two of the individuals are believed to have played a role in the creation and development of Russian Coms.
A typical scam would involve calling someone as a representative from their bank and advising them to transfer money to a different account because of fraudulent activity being detected.
Fraud now makes up 40 percent of all crime against individuals in England and Wales with more than 80 percent of it being enabled by technology.
“Criminals are increasingly using technology to carry out fraud and other crimes on an industrial scale, causing very real harm to victims in the UK and across the world,” the director of the NCA’s National Economic Crime Centre, Adrian Searle, added.
British authorities have in recent years busted similar platforms including iSpoof and LabHost, underscoring the often whack-a-mole nature of catching cybercriminals.
Russian Coms was sold as a handset or a web application and took payment via cryptocurrency. A screenshot shared by the NCA advertised a monthly service for 350 pounds ($446) that offered features such as 5,000 minutes of encrypted calling from anywhere and 24/7 customer support.
Additional features advertised included “hold music” and voice-changing services.
